I know that people are freaking out about Hissho but I think that there's a far bigger problem we face in this patch - fleet accelerators. I fear that the change to fleet accelerators slows down the game and makes waging war more difficult and less fun.

As I understand, the change was introduced to make jumping from point A to B less viable and to increase the importance of defending key systems with your fleets - which I believe could've been done in a simpler way that doesn't slow down the gameplay or increase defender's advantage:

Imo it would be best if fleet accelerators only applied their bonus to movement points on star lanes but not outside of star lanes (so no effect on warp travel). This way you could still protect your empire by guarding key systems but you wouldn't feel annoyed by having very slow or under-equipped ships.

I recorded a video where I discuss this issue in-depth (as well as talk about CP changes, Hissho and Obliterators).

Let me stress out that I have trust in Amplitude Studios - I'm sure they'll continue working on this game and improve this situation. It's because I love Amplitude Studios that I have to voice my concerns ;)

I believe that would be possible because we already have the case meddling with the distance traveled by free movement (in hero skill)

So a single line of modifier like 'Force FreeMovementSpeed 0.05' would have been enough for the desired purpose I think.

While I'm currently more concerned about Hissho & Obliterators, I think doing so via workshop mod is quite decent idea.

Someone make a mod and let's try it!

My personal opinion is that taxi fleets are ridiculous in all forms. I played a game with the patch and I had little problem waging war. With all the engine updates you can unlock, the faster warp travel tech, the scout hero's warp speed boost or other heroes fleet speed boosts plus the (now hero only) speed boosters, you can still have pretty fast fleets. I had a scout attached to my invasion fleet and was zooming around with relative ease.

I noticed in your recent shipbuilding guides that you don't install engines on your ships.

I like the idea of restricting boosters to star lanes if it can be done but I still wouldn't want the return of taxi fleets.

The CP unlocks clearly needed more work. My suggestion would be something like this:

Base: 4

Military Era 3 unlock: +3

Military Era 4 unlock: +4

Military Era 5 unlock: +5

Military Endless Tech: +6

Medium Attacker Tech: +3

Medium Support: +3

Carrier Tech: +4

This would be, in my opinion, a very organic CP unlock system.

The Hissho nerf was always gonna be controversial. Maybe increasing the maximum systems they can own before the FIDSI penalty would lessen the hurt.

True, you can have fast ships with engine modules but that forces you to sacrifice a different module, like weapon, defence or other support - something that a defender doesn't have to do, giving them an advantage. And some factions have an easier time finding a free support module than others.

I also don't want taxi fleets to return but I think that the way they were dealt with was a bit of an overkill. And it changed the balance of different factions a lot. I mean, no accelerator modules is an indirect buff to sophons or vaulters and debuff to horatio or riftborn.

All in all, war is certainly still doable - but less fun imo

Hey when I apply War Banners to a Behemoth...should the other fleets in the Kei radius get the effect?

Slashman wrote:

Hey when I apply War Banners to a Behemoth...should the other fleets in the Kei radius get the effect?

I think it should. Why?

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

Slashman wrote:

Hey when I apply War Banners to a Behemoth...should the other fleets in the Kei radius get the effect?

I think it should. Why?

Because it wasn't when I played yesterday. I thought it was intentional.

It was fixed not nerfed.

Ah my mistake...it is applying but the fleets don't have the Warbanner symbol next to them for some reason. I'll see if this is a one time thing.

First of all, allow me to mention, that I am, perhaps, not the most experienced player. However I like Endless Univerce a lot and want to help to improve the game part, so I suppose, (relatively) newcomers  point of view is also valid.

1) Fleet accelerators.

I am confused a bit. Of course, with new fleet cp it is important to add some limitations and, futhermore, these "speed-of-light" fleets with tons of fleet accelerators were clearly a cheat of sorts (as well as "taxy" services) but...I believe that this nerf was done in a bit strange way. To be sincere, what realy bothers me here is not a speed itself, but balance changes that this rework causes. From certain persprctive I even like them, cause, for exemple, now Vaulters have certain recompensation for their lower sheep strength, cause now they can achieve nearly peerless mobility. At the same time, Horatio, who have already low number of modules or Riftborn, who have a speed of a snail...ok, there may be ways to bypass these limitations, but what I really can`t understand, why there was need to create them in the first place! Actually...I believe, there is even a special term for things that create a new problem while solving another one...anyway. I think, it may be better to, for exemple, to limit these modules "one per hull" and, probably, change a bit their output numbers. This way they will have lesser inpact at all, and especialy in new, bigger fleets, and at the same time, don`t create these "motionless" fleets. It wasn`t absolutely bad idea to give heroes some "hero-only" type of modules, but again, from my perspective, the problem is that there are some factions that suffer from this change (Horatio - low modules, Riftborn - low average speed etc.) ad some - that benefite (Vaulters - portals and multiple "support-only" slots, Sophons - very high average speed). I agree, that some factions that can be much more mobile than others, thats their domain of expertise, but (!) now they are either very slow or very fast and, this is the most important part, some of them have to chose, to be fast and weak or strong and slow, and some of them can, to a certain degree combine these qualities via combination of laws and traits for exemple... so...to finish this part, I don`t want hundreds of movement points for everyone, but to avoid the situation when, for instance, I can`t even defend myself in situation when it is impossible for me to concentrate enought fire power in one place. For exemple (maby, the most radical). I am playing Horatio, my opponent - Sophons. My systems are protected by battle oriented ships, so - with low move points. they are weeker(theoretically) but fast...and now - question. They attaque me with several fleets. I move to intercept them in the point of their estimated choise...I even managed to reach there with all of my protector fleets. And then they change direction. I can (in a way) pursue them with only my hero-led fleets...which may leave me either outnumbered either worser, if they also possess heroes...I hope you see the point. Of course, this exemple is extragerated but anyway...again, I believe it is good to have fast factions...but not at the same time with slime-speed factions. So...a bit of rework of fleet accelerators, "one per hull" or something akin and the problen is pretty much solved. At least in my opinion, if I am wrong, please, correct me.

2) Obliterators - no problem, maby it`s fun, but a waste from my perspective. As well I find resonable other changes of bethemots.

3) Hisho...no yet sure, I don`t have too much expirience with new them-yet, howether I agree with Pangolin that their mining-probe related trait is too mech week in the beginning.

Thank you for your attention, and thank you for your reponces.

limit these modules "one per hull "

The issue with this solution is that this doesn't really fix the old problem of old taxi fleets, just makes it more tedoius to use taxi service. There's also another problem that there would be no point to put this module on coordinators - since instead of 1 coordinator with 1 fleet accelerator you could get 3 protectors with 1 fleet accelerator on each of them. Sadly, support modules don't scale when installed on larger vessels (unlike weapons) :/

I still think that limiting fleet accelerators to only function when traveling on starlanes (but not when traveling outside of them) is the best way to deal with taxi services without drasticly changing the speed of the game and the balance of different factions. As you pointed out, poor riftborn and horatio got indirectly nerfed by this patch in a really bad way and they aren't the only ones. Meanwhile the already powerful sophons got indirectly buffed so everything is a mess right now :s

I also wouldn't mind increasing the cost of fleet accelerators even further - as long as we're allowed to install them on non-hero ships again (provided that these accelerators don't work outside of starlanes ofc).

2) Obliterators - no problem, maby it`s fun, but a waste from my perspective.

My biggest gripe with obliterators is that they punish the player for using them, which is anti-fun. I have no problem with it being hard to use an obliterator - but once a player actually manages to fire one of them, that player should feel a sense of accomplishement and happily watch the fireworks! Not to mention, that the approval malus feels counter-intuitive - surely it's the people who're fired upon that should be terrified, not the people firing the obliterator lol.

I also wouldn't mind increasing the cost of fleet accelerators even further - as long as we're allowed to install them on non-hero ships again (provided that these accelerators don't work outside of starlanes ofc).

My first thought was to change fleet accelerators to something like:

+10/20/30% Movement speed on starlanes

Can only be installed on Support ships

You can't equip more than one Module of this type

Problem is, then we'd be right back to the issue of taxi fleets. Regardless of how strong or weak their effect is, or whether multiple of them can be equpped on a single ship, I think allowing them to be equipped on non-Hero ships will always incentivize putting them on dedicated taxi hulls to save precious support slots for your main fleet.

So I think it comes down to the question of what the change to fleet accelerators is trying to achieve. If the goal is just to slow fleets down and solve the "point A to point B warp movement" problem, then the "+% movement on starlanes" change should succeed accross the board, regardless of the specific implementation. But if we insist on getting rid of taxi fleets, then I can't see a solution in the current framework of the game beyond restricting them to Hero ships.

1) Obliterators. 

May be you are correct in some way. From a certain perspective that is true it can be a source of joe, but, I suppose, militarist-only. For pretty much any other point of view, obliteration of the whole system is horrible. And even for the militarists...a bit questionable cause there is such a factor as helplessness. Even the greatest warior may warry when all his skills become useless and it is completely the case. So some sort of malus is completely resonable. And in regard to my point of view...why the hell I may need such ugly "death stars on steroids" which will destroy some possibilities, when I can simply break through with my glorious golden ships and then disembark several...hundred...thousand of... "embodiments of perfection" claiming it immidiately for myself? :)

2) Back to accelerators... so...there were two big problems (and some new ideas, such as bigger fleets): "taxy sevices" and "light-speed" fleets. Now we have slower game and almost balance breaking speed diversity, hm...

Am I correct, that the main problem with speed accelerators is that they creates this "taxy" exploit?...Ok, what if we allow to use this modules on medium and higher hulls? And, of course, make them more expensive? I think that, in these conditions, if you will be able to build that much coordinators for "taxy`s sake", then you probably already win or close to it...what do you think?

And yes, your idea about starline limitation is interesting. The only problem I see here is with need to move your fleets between constellations before wormhole unlock...but it is still manageable.

Anyway...I can agree with overall lower game speed till it isn`t this crippling in certain occasions...

This update I don't like 030

I can't help to war in galxy another side

I need choose wait they fly or Employment more hero to speed up my army

Get war victory tempo is to long,It's like fall into swamp

shasho wrote:

I also wouldn't mind increasing the cost of fleet accelerators even further - as long as we're allowed to install them on non-hero ships again (provided that these accelerators don't work outside of starlanes ofc).

My first thought was to change fleet accelerators to something like:

+10/20/30% Movement speed on starlanes

Can only be installed on Support ships

You can't equip more than one Module of this type

Problem is, then we'd be right back to the issue of taxi fleets. Regardless of how strong or weak their effect is, or whether multiple of them can be equpped on a single ship, I think allowing them to be equipped on non-Hero ships will always incentivize putting them on dedicated taxi hulls to save precious support slots for your main fleet.

So I think it comes down to the question of what the change to fleet accelerators is trying to achieve. If the goal is just to slow fleets down and solve the "point A to point B warp movement" problem, then the "+% movement on starlanes" change should succeed accross the board, regardless of the specific implementation. But if we insist on getting rid of taxi fleets, then I can't see a solution in the current framework of the game beyond restricting them to Hero ships.

And this is exactly the dilemma!

One of my mantras is to keep stuff simple but when you've got stuff like this you need to introduce so many levels of conditions that I don't believe makes it very intuitive.

Like this.

- support ship only

- starlane only

- one per hull allowed

This is in itself 3 conditions.  Then even if you make it +30%, if you get 10 of them that's +300% which is insane in my books. Not even the increased price will hold this back since resources are never a problem if you don't play with the "rare" setting. There needs to be a cap. But then if you have to introduce a cap, where do you draw the line? It will just make it very very unintuitive. See why I support hero ship only?

One thing you COULD do if you leave them hero-only though, make them really worth it. The first one you can get is +1 only... I wouldn't install that, to be honest. I'd want +3 minimum. Or make it something like the ramscoop.

God no, making them super worthwhile will just remove every bit of customization on Hero ships because they'll overshadow everything else.

Kuma wrote:

God no, making them super worthwhile will just remove every bit of customization on Hero ships because they'll overshadow everything else.

True. Then it just says to me that the way it is now is the right way. As far as I'm concerned, the ability to rely on taxi fleets should never have been an option in the first place. If we think that not being able to use them ruins the game then I think the issue is something else.

Accelerator modules were simply not designed to be "One module per fleet". That's why their values rediculously irrelevant, except, maybe, quadrinix.

The fact devs decided against G2G-balance mod this time really played against them. Who knows how many time will pass untill issues this "balance" patch introduced will be adressed. Three monthes? Six?